Hard Drive Speed Boost On The Horizon?

The good news is that a new technique involving lasers may speed traditional magnetic hard drives up by as much as 100 times!

The bad news is that we might have to wait a decade to even see a prototype. Hopefully some heavy hitter in the storage arena will see the promise in this technology and put it on the R & D fast track.

“This optically induced, ultrafast magnetization reversal, he says, was previously believed impossible, and it is the combined result of femtosecond laser heating of the magnetic system to just below the Curie point, and circularly polarized light simultaneously acting as a magnetic field.

Similar effects have previously been used in magneto-optical storage devices, but those used a magnetic field applied by conventional means, not by the laser.”

There’s no telling what impact this technology becoming mainstream might have on SSDs and hybrids.